


take the long way down (wait for me)

by fourteentimes



Series: still turning out [3]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25787353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourteentimes/pseuds/fourteentimes
Summary: “I picked you, didn’t I?”Plucked him from the fields, more like.(or: marriage is hard, being the god of the underworld is harder, and being the god married to the god of the underworld is hardest; greek myth bastardization)
Relationships: Tenshouin Eichi/Tsukinaga Leo
Series: still turning out [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870684
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	take the long way down (wait for me)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "wait for me" from hadestown
> 
> written for the prompt eileo & flower crowns & "i can't trust anyone anymore, can i"
> 
> check out this [really beautiful art](https://twitter.com/mayalla17/status/1296193148658561027) by mayalla17 on twitter!!!!

“I can’t trust anyone anymore, can I?” 

“What makes you say that, little king?” 

Eichi looks resplendent, angelic, even with his obsidian crown, wrapped in his effortlessly flowing black cape. His dark suit is all sharp, smart angles that draw the eye. 

Leo wants to rip it off him, and it’s only half in the horny sense. 

“This.” Leo gestures to the cavernous throne room, to the armies of undead shuffling listlessly and empty-eyed as they watch them. Squabbling at the altar. He didn’t exactly imagine that when he thought about getting married. “You don’t even mean it, do you?” 

“That’s quite an insinuation,” Eichi says as he fixes Leo’s crown of asphodels. They’re not really his style. It feels too stark, he thinks, as a bone-white petal drifts to the floor. Clinical. Removed. Eichi’s fingers are cold when they linger on his cheek. “I picked you, didn’t I?” 

Plucked him from the fields, more like. Plied him with gifts and flowers and kisses until he said yes, until he followed him down into the shadows and below. 

(And even then, he was too trusting, too  _ naive _ , to believe it couldn’t be true. Because Eichi wouldn’t do that, he said. Not to him. Because Eichi said he wouldn’t.)

If it’s the best he’s going to get (a lifeless field of bone-white flowers, a dark and haunting marriage, a loveless husband), he should just suck it up and make the most of it, right? 

“That’s fine if you don’t now,” Leo says as he straightens his back, tightening his hands around the bouquet of--of course--more asphodels. “I’ll make you mean it.”

“Oh?” Eichi’s smug smile is beautiful. Leo hates it and the amused tone in his voice. He steps into Leo’s space, hands sliding down to rest on his hips. His fingers are a shock through the thin, gauzy thing he made Leo put on. “I can’t wait, little king.” 

“I’ll make you eat those words,” Leo murmurs. The dark swirls on Eichi’s suit are more interesting than his face. He traces them with an idle finger. “I’ll make you regret it.” 

“I’ll never regret you.” 

Eichi sounds sincere. 

Leo can’t help but laugh a dark and bitter laugh. 

“You’ve never been sweet. Are you really choosing to start now?” he says before he throws down the bouquet and surges forward to take Eichi’s cold, cold face in hand and kiss him.

“Is that a yes, then?” Eichi says after what feels like an eternity. Longer. Leo wants to kiss him again, see if that will wreck his perfect expression. He won’t, he knows. But it’s always fun to try.

“It is.” 

For now. 

For now, Leo lets Eichi kiss him back, lets him part his lips and kiss him breathless again and again and again. 

For now, he lets Eichi lead him out of the throne room to their private quarters and lay him out in their bed and part his thighs and make him wail. 

\---

Time passes too slowly and too quickly in the darkness, but inaction never sat well with him. 

Sometimes, Leo lets days slip away in the library, pouring over books he reads, but doesn’t really take the time to meaningfully understand. 

Sometimes, Eichi will watch his clumsy sword fighting practice with an amused expression while he works. More and more often, he’ll draw his own sword and join and have Leo on his back in the dust of the training grounds once he’s gotten him at swordpoint. 

Sometimes, he watches Eichi as he sits on his throne and manages the dead and counts the riches of his kingdom and pours over his maps. The words wash over him, the murmurs of Eichi’s plans that he thinks Leo doesn’t catch with how quietly he speaks.

Sometimes, he walks the asphodel fields, slipping among the dead that crowd, and searches endlessly for that gate Eichi walked him through that first day. The palace never leaves his sight, no matter how far he roams. 

Eichi always seems to know where he is. He always finds him when Leo wanders, aimless instead of seeking. He wanders with Leo, holds his hand as they travel through the fields together. Their fingers intertwine as the dead part to let their king through. They don’t go back to the palace until hours, days, weeks pass of them together in the fields.

“If you were serious,” Eichi says one day as they lay in the fields and stare up at the gem-studded cavern, “you would have found it by now.” 

“You never were the worst,” Leo says in lieu of answering him. 

The soft, private smile Eichi gives him when he climbs in his lap and rolls his hips and digs his fingers into the soft, soft dirt please something deep and dark in Leo, though. 

\---

“It seems as though that’s  _ my _ choice,” Leo says. The crown of asphodels doesn’t sit quite right and never has, but Leo refused the crown of shiny black obsidian Eichi presented to him.

Hearing Leo speak seems to startle the nervous-looking, minor messenger god. Eichi doesn’t spook quite so easily, but even he raises an eyebrow. 

Good. Let him. 

“B-but, he’s been specifically ordered--” 

“I think,” Leo cuts him off as he stands from his throne, an ugly and ornate thing that matches Eichi’s, “I made myself quite clear that you’re speaking to  _ me _ .” 

The poor boy. He trembles as Leo makes his way down the dias. 

“And I think,” Leo plucks the letter from the boy’s fingers and rips it clean in two, “I’d like to stay.” 

“Your Majesty?!” the boy squeaks, frozen. 

“My husband has expressed himself quite clearly, I think.” Eichi always sounds so prim and proper, even when he’s clearly surprised. Leo’s had years--decades, centuries?--to learn him. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” 

“So run along and let them know.” Leo smiles, and the boy whimpers. He can’t leave their throne room fast enough. 

“What changed your mind?” Eichi asks once Leo’s settled back on his throne and thrown off his crown. 

“It’s not the right time yet.” They hold hands loosely in the space between their thrones. “Soon.” 

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re trying harder to keep me here.” Leo leans over to grab the asphodel crown from the ground, dusting off a few of the petals that have gotten ruffled.. “That means it’s time soon.” 

“On our wedding day, I told you. I picked you,” Eichi says. He sounds especially measured. “That was for a reason.” 

“Your rules are boring,” Leo says as he drops into Eichi’s lap. He tugs off Eichi’s jet black crown. “You were going to hide me away. Bold of you to assume I’ll let you do anything of the sort.” 

“And what’s your plan instead?” The flowers fit him far, far better, even as they tickle Leo’s cheek when Eichi leans him to kiss his neck. He’s still just as cold as their wedding day.

“Of course you’re taking me with you.” 

“Anything you want, little king.” 

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow my writing twitter [@satiIIquinart](https://twitter.com/satiIIquinart) for updates!


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